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JOHN LENNON’S relationship with Yoko Ono has been widely credited with breaking up his first marriage – yet an unearthed letter from 1976 revealed why he thought his relationship with Cynthia Powell really crumbled.
Lennon was famed as a member of The Beatles, the hit pop band which dominated the charts throughout the Sixties. They officially disbanded in 1970, leading fans to blame Lennon’s budding relationship with Yoko Ono for The Beatles’ separation. The divorce papers from his six-year marriage to his school sweetheart Cynthia Powell stated that his affair with Yoko had broken up that relationship too.

However, the discovery of a private letter written by Lennon in 1976 shows a different side to the story.
In 2017, The Telegraph revealed the contents of a letter he had written for his ex-wife which was being put up for auction.
Addressing Cynthia eight years after their divorce, he wrote: “As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of […] Yoko Ono… and that’s reality!”
He had been having affairs throughout their marriage, as his band’s fame made him into a global superstar. They married after Cynthia fell pregnant, but kept it a secret out of fear that it would damage the Beatles reputation.
He was writing in response to Cynthia’s tell-all interview with several newspapers and magazines about Lennon’s affair.

At the time, extracts from her 1978 memoir, ‘A Twist of Lennon’, were being published in the News of the World, subsequently enraging the former Beatle.
In the letter he said: “Your memory is impaired to say the least.”
He continued: “I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from your ‘Beatle’ past. But if you are serious about it, you should try to avoid talking to and posing for magazines and newspapers!’”
Cynthia claimed she knew the marriage was over after she returned from a holiday early and found Yoko Ono in her house.

In 1985, she told American radio talk show host Terry Gross that “she had been staying with John that night, and I came home and they were there”.
They were reportedly both dressed in white dressing gowns and staring into each other’s eyes.
Cynthia claimed the moment “was sort of curtains for our marriage as far as all of us were concerned really”.
She was not the only one to blame his affair with Yoko for the breakdown of their marriage.
Fellow Paul McCartney told American radio host Howard Stern in 2018: “[John] had found Yoko and John loved strong women.
“His mother was a strong woman, his aunty who brought him up was a strong woman but, bless her, his first wife wasn’t a strong woman.”
He continued: “John had met up with Yoko and even though we thought it was intrusive, because she used to sit in on sessions and we had never had anything like that, but the guy was totally in love with her. You have to respect that.”

Lennon, on the other hand, appeared to think his first marriage was doomed anyway, regardless of his relationship with Yoko.
He also revealed in the letter how Cynthia had tried to rekindle their marriage several years later – and, despite being separated from Yoko at the time, he was not interested.
He wrote: “You also seem to have forgotten that only two years ago, while I was separated from Yoko, you suddenly brought Julian to see me in Los Angeles after three years of silence.”
He said she then asked him to remarry her, “and/or give you another child”, for the sake of their son Julian.

Lennon explained: “I politely told you no, and that, anyway, I was still in love with Yoko, (which I thought was very ‘down to earth’).“We did have some good years, so dwell on them for a change, and, as Dylan says, it was ‘A Simple Twist of Fate’!”He ended the letter by writing, “love and good luck to the three of you, from the three of us”.
Cynthia went on to marry three more times.

John Lennon once wrote a heartwarming Christmas letter to his first wife Cynthia, according to unearthed reports.

When he died he was married to Yoko Ono, but an uncovered letter from 1958 revealed the strength of feeling John had for his girlfriend and, later his first wife, Cynthia Powell.
Writing in Vanity Fair in 2012, Bruce Handy revealed how the music icon wished his love interest a Happy Christmas.

Mr Handy wrote how he “was particularly moved by a painfully sweet, eight-page Christmas card” he sent to Cynthia, revealed in ‘The John Lennon Letters’ by editor Hunter Davies and published by Pete Townsend and Neil Young.
The reporter explained: “Under the heading OUR FIRST XMAS!, he drew the two of them standing close, heads together, his hand laid gently on her arm, he in long sideburns and pegged pants, she in a checked miniskirt, looking very much like a potential first couple of not-yet-swinging London.”
John was 18 at the time.

On the sixth page, he wrote: “I love you so don’t leave me I love you so don’t leave leave don’t leave me I love you Cynthia.”
In 1962 he wrote another letter to Cynthia, adding: “It’s Sunday afternoon. I’ve just wakened up … Paul’s leaping about on my head (he’s in a bunk on top of me and he’s snoring!) I can hardly get in a position to write it’s so cramped below stairs captain.
“Shurrup McCartney! Grunt grunt.”
John added he would rather be “on the way to your flat with the Sunday papers and choccies”.
He later commented: “Oh yes! I forgot to tell you I’ve got a GEAR suede overcoat with a belt so I’ll look just like you now!”

As Mr Handy remarked: “Lennon wasn’t much of a letter writer, it turns out; he was more of a jotter and list-maker, a sender of terse, wish-you-were-here style postcards.
“Many of the entries here are perfunctory at best.”

John married Cynthia in 1962. They had one child together, Julian Lennon, but the two of them divorced in 1968. John started a controversial and incredibly high-profile relationship with Yoko – which was often berated by fans and blamed for The Beatles split.
The two of them had a son as well, called Sean.
Both Yoko and Cynthia were devastated in the wake of John’s murder, and became friends.
In 2005 Cynthia wrote a book called ‘John’ about her late ex-husband, detailing their ten year relationship and John’s rise to the top. She died ten years later from cancer.express.co.uk

Currently up for auction, the letter, written by Lennon in 1976, is addressed to his former wife and printed on Lennono Music letter-headed paper. A response to excerpts from Powell’s memoir A Twist of Lennon being published in the News of the World, Lennon requests in the letter that she stop running to newspapers with details of his affair, claiming that “As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of LSD or Yoko Ono…and that’s reality!”
The second letter currently up for auction is a handwritten note to the News of the World, in which Lennon requested they print his letter to Powell without any editing, claiming “it’s only fair to me and your readers to present my side of the story.”
The letters are expected to fetch over $9,000 in the auction, which ends today. Any Beatles fans with presumably deep pockets can make their bids at RRAuction.com.

An open letter John wrote to his ex-wife Cynthia slamming her for making details of their marriage breakdown public has been unearthed after 41 years.

In the original letter, which is titled ‘an open letter to Cynthia Twist’ and is dated November 15, 1976, the former Beatle said Cynthia had an ‘impaired’ memory of their marriage. John sent the letter to a US weekly magazine for them to publish with the request that it is ‘printed without any edits.I think it only fair to me and your readers to present my side of the story’. He wrote it in response to an article Cynthia had published in an English women’s magazine earlier that year.

He refuted her claim that he hired a private detective to spy on her and her future husband Roberto Bassanini who she was married to from 1970 to 1973. The letter measures 8.5in by 11in and has been signed ‘John’ with Lennon adding a small sketch of his face. It is being consigned by a private collector in the US who wishes to remain anonymous and the letter is tipped to sell for £20,000 ($25,000).

It reads in full: “As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of L.S.D. or Yoko Ono … and that’s reality!“Your memory is impaired to say the least. “Your version of our first L.S.D. trip is rather vague, and you seem to have forgotten subsequent trips altogether! “You also seem to have forgotten that only two years ago, while I was separated from Yoko, you suddenly brought Julian to see me in Los Angeles after three years of silence. “During this visit, you hardly allowed me to be alone with him for one moment. “You even asked me to remarry you and/or give you another child, ‘for Julian’s sake’! “I politely told you no, and that, anyway, I was still in love with Yoko, (which I thought was very ‘down to earth’).“There were no detectives sent to Italy. Our mutual friend Alex Mardas went to Bassanini’s Hotel to see how you were, as you said you were too ill to come home.. “Finally, I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from your ‘Beatle’ past. “But if you are serious about it, you should try to avoid talking to and posing for magazines and newspapers! “We did have some good years, so dwell on them for a change, and, as Dylan says, it was ‘A Simple Twist of Fate!’
“Love & good luck to the three of you, from the three of us.”

John’s pun on Cynthia’s surname at the close of the first letter ‘A Simple Twist of Fate’ possibly inspired Cynthia’s decision to call her forthcoming memoirs A Twist of Lennon which were published in 1978.

A spokesman for US based RR Auctions, who are selling the letter, said: “As Lennon’s official side of the story, a public he-said, she-said self-defence, these letters represent the unique final chapter in the life of the former Beatle. “They are of the utmost rarity and importance.” Cynthia met John in a calligraphy class at the Liverpool College of Art and they began dating in 1958. They married in 1962 and were together for six years but divorced in November 1968. In 1976, Cynthia married John Twist, an engineer from Lancashire, but divorced him in 1983. She was married to night club owner Noel Charles from 2002 until his death in 2013. Two years later, in 2015, she died aged 76.

The auction ends on August 9.

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